The Joys and Benefits of Working as a Distributed Team

It’s a decision I made at the end of 2012, when Buffer was in its infancy, and it’s interesting to reflect on that decision now. I am happy to report that I am in love with the choice we made to be distributed all across the world.

When I say that we’re a remote, distributed team, I mean that we’re literally spread across the whole world. Buffer is a team of 79 right now, and we have teammates on almost every continent and across timezones worldwide.

The sun never sets on Buffer!

The worldwide, remote Buffer team and the timezones we cover. (Visual courtesy of timezone.io.)

6 reasons why being a remote, distributed team is so exciting

I think the distributed team discussion is often focused around the challenges. I wanted to share from our experience the fun side of being distributed, which I think far outweighs the challenges:

1. Our team is super productive

The thing about hiring people for a distributed team is that they need to be self-motivated and productive working at home, coffee shops, or a co-working space.

During the hiring process, we look especially for people who have worked as freelancers or on startups. Everyone on board is incredibly smart, and it’s humbling to work with them.

2. Team members have incredible amounts of freedom

Have a family event coming up and need to travel on Friday? No problem.

Want to take off to Bali or Gran Canaria for a few weeks and work from there? Awesome – please share photos :)

These things have all happened and are regular occurrences within our distributed team.

It’s the little things too, like being able to avoid a commute and spend more time with family. We don’t have working hours, and we don’t measure hours at all. We’re all excited about our vision, and we focus on results, balance, and sustained productivity.

3. It feels like the future

Even being able to share the locations of all my co-workers when I meet others and chat about Buffer is so fun and exciting. I think it provides a great story, rather than all of us being in the same office each day.

People ask how we manage it and I share our workflows and remote work tools. We call Slack our office, and Zoom is our conference room. Here’s a look at some of the team in a recent Zoom call:

I genuinely believe that how we’re set up will be very normal in a few years. There are certainly challenges and we’re still figuring a lot of it out. It’s fun and a huge privilege to be able to be part of this innovation and experiment and share our learnings.

4. I’m learning so much about the world

People within the team speak lots of different languages, and talking with each other we learn about what it’s like to grow up elsewhere in the world. We think carefully about shaping our culture further and how our choices might affect the various cultures within the team.

5. We travel the world to work together multiple times a year

Part of the DNA of Buffer is that we traveled all over the world for much of the first two years. This is something that has been sustained and is part of our values (and many in the team have lived up to this value by traveling as part of the team).

On our all-company retreats, we spend a week working together and also do activities like sightseeing, boating and safaris. Most recently we gathered in Singapore!

6. Timezones make you awesome

Finally, you can look at timezones as an inconvenience, or you can embrace them and discover the magic of the time difference.

A key part of our vision is to set the bar for customer support. We obsessively track the happiness of our customers and our speed to respond to them. We have more than a million users and we reply to 80% of emails within 1 hour. We couldn’t achieve this level of service without being spread across multiple timezones.

Timezones are a huge help for our development cycle too – with engineers in the US, UK, Asia and Africa, we literally never stop coding.

Hey @rishi100:disqus and @FlyersPh9:disqus, that’s such a huge compliment that you two want to use it :) Right now it’s just a proof of concept and the code is on Github. I may build it out in the future! Would love any feedback in how you’d like to use it :)

I’d love this idea, too. I already commented on Twitter about it, but it’s cool. The charity I work with doesn’t have quite the variety of timezones as Buffer does, but we do have people in multiple areas of the US, Africa, and France. I think it would be a great reference, especially for any of our volunteers. It’s also a great visual to help connect people as a team in a more tangible way, even if you aren’t always working together at the same time (heh). There is something about seeing a person and not just a number that does that better :).

I can see Swiggle also kind of helps with this to a degree as well, but I still love this anyhow!

Hey @rishi100:disqus, @FlyersPh9:disqus, @Tommyismyname:disqus – It’s taken a while to get the free time, but the Timezone app is in development right now, you can add your email on http://timezone.io and we’ll notify you when it’s available for signup! :)

Distributed Team is really amazing, for share document did you use OneDrive, Box, Dropbox, GDrive… Owncloud?

And the most important question…. Did you have a shared music playlist? ;) Spotify or so…

music for a server update, maybe Mozart,
music for launch a new App feature, maybe ACDC…

Yes, really, I love this open and transparent culture, amazing work guys.

Courtney Seiter

Hi Carlos! We share documents mostly with Dropbox and Hackpad. We have a music room in Hipchat where we can share what we’re listening to. I think the Happiness Heroes might have their own Spotify playlist. I’ll check on that! :)

Hi, Courtney. I just Buffer-shared the fantastic post you wrote on how you combat creative blocks, so it was nice to see your name pop up in these comments. As the self-appointed Chief Navigator of Gold Boat Journeys: Mind Trips for Writers, I love invented job titles. Happiness Hero: That describes my work perfectly, too. I would love to share my Spotify play list and the feeds I curate for my Beyond The Bucket List page @Rebelmouse and my Buffer app. I’m currently working as a contractor for a UK travel start up and previously worked for an Australian company (that, unfortunately, didn’t make it). I got these gigs through Twitter and find the interaction with people from other backgrounds, on projects that have no global center, is better than any you could ever have in an office. I get paid for this work promptly via Paypal. How do I apply to become one of Buffer’s Happiness Heroes or to write, curate and create for Buffer? I’m informally based in Laguna Beach, California, but travel as much as I can.

Awesome article, thanks for sharing! Distributed team sounds like a great fun. Our company has people in 3 different time zones, so we have a little fun too :-) Since we are in Europe, we often end up having calls at 8PM, which is also fun :) The timezone app looks awesome, great job Dan!

Courtney Seiter

Aren’t time zones fun? Every day I try and master them a little more. ;)

Yes, they are superfun! :) I always wonder how to travel back in time in a plane :-)

PointSpecial

These are some of the good things and some of the positives of a distributed team.

Can you share some of the difficulties (beyond the obvious) with distributed teams? For one, it seems like dealing with employee benefits might be a big struggle. I know even with fully national teams there are sometimes issues across state lines (and Obamacare really missed the boat by not allowing interstate competition in the health exchanges vs just intrastate) because of different laws… I can’t imagine what implementation would be like for international comparisons of benefits for the same reason. Most multi-national corporations have at least an office (i.e. many employees) so navigating the cost and legality of different benefit options makes more sense financially.

I’ve wondered more generally HOW a distributed team really does benefits.

With staff all over the country, are you hiring your team as employees or as contractors? If employees, do you not find filing taxes and managing state employment laws in so many states to be cumbersome?

Hey Joshua – we do a bit of both to handle this. In the US, everyone is an employee on payroll. It can get a little taxing with formalities ;) however we have awesome help from Foresight – http://www.foresightasg.com/ – to help us there. In the future, we’ll probably think about people in other countries being officially on payroll too :)

Hi Joel, can you speak more on how payroll handle’s the folks from foreign countries? I’m finding that though many more companies are open to remote, they aren’t quite sure what the legal/tax parameters are; i.e. Does just filing the person as 1099 contractor worker cover it, or is there more to it? Or does Foresight handle that for you as well.

Joey

If the company becomes a B-corp they share in the profits much like a stock.. then they would have to pay the taxes in their country… I would double check but many companies over seas became B-Corps as long as you have a profit share and do something to help better the world or community

Joey

sound like Buffer need to be come a B-corporation like may others get nice tax write off and help the communities that your in and great promos with other countries…

I work with a distributed team as well, and I totally agree that before long this will most likely be the norm. The benefits are all over the map, and each employee has more of an opportunity to be successful at work and keep their family a #1 priority.

jack shelby

Great post. Do you use scrum or any other agile methods? If yes, how do you organize your scrum meetings with your distributed teams?

Mike Cutler

Joel- My problem is. I see all these great ideas and I understand why working remote is a great way to truly get work done. However, at my work we have a strict no working from home policy. How do I convince my boss to give working from home a shot?

Joel, great article. I’m planning to do exactly this with https://angel.co/learning-dollars since I’m in the US, Juzer is in Kenya, and Rajeshree is in Africa. I was wondering if we could simply present user data and raise money all through Angellist too. I was wondering how you approached funding a distributed team. How did you get your investors to know your full team?

Amber Llila

Hi Joel!
Wow! This is an awesome company and I like what I see so far. I am a former IT Project Manager and I have worked on multi-million dollar projects that employed people in India as well as within the 50 states. I am a huge supporter of distributed teams [when appropriate] and I find it is an interesting way to work. With any team, you will have to strive to reach the “performing” stage but your company’s formula seems solid.

Hey Joel & Courtney – I believe this is definitely the future when it comes to online businesses. This enables full ownership from each team member and can be more efficient when all cylinders are firing smoothly. =)

Todd Broyles

Joel, kudos on your forward thinking about a distributed team. It is definitely the future. How do you tackle cost of living when looking at salaries for your team members?

theplastictoy

Great post Joel. “It feels like the future” is spot on! I’m more and more interested in teams that work remotely and how they’re learning to communicate even better. We are not a fully remote team, but HipChat, Trello and Asana have shifted everyone’s mindset and we’re actually communicating a lot better now, even for people in the office.

Couldn’t agree more with this strategy, as a 100% telecommute freelancer. Being open to a fully distributed team not only improves the pool of workers for companies, it also improves the lives of those free to work wherever they are. It makes perfect sense for W2’s and 1099’s alike, as there’s less time and resources wasted in daily commutes. I’m sure if there were analysts assessing this business model overall with multiple companies, the metrics would also prove that distributed “remote” workers are far more happy and productive than seat warmer workers, but that’s just an intuitive hunch.

Meni

I’m a bit late to the party, but hopefully this will still pop up in your notifications.

We are in a very similar position to where you were at the beginning – whether or not to be a fully distributed team. there are some pros and cons of course, and most investors dislike this :) We have one specific issue that is bothering us right now, which is a follow up to Joshua’s question – how do you manage the payments to subcontractors, around the world? we found that certain countries (e.g. France) find invoicing a single company illegal, as a way to circumvent opening a local entity.
Would be awesome if you could share how you deal with this.
Any general advice about building a distributed company would be greatly appreciated :)

Kim Tole

Thanks for the great read! Love working with international staff. I love learning about other cultures. I like the advantage of working remotely. Technology is fabulous! Thanks for sharing your insights and experiences! I am intrigued!

Pedro Góes

Hi @joelgascoigne:disqus, great article!

One question: if employees decide to work from a co-working space, Buffer pays for it?

Thank you,

Ryan Baker

Hey Joel – we’re a fully remote team of 23 and growing based in New Zealand and London (so far). Customers in 66 countries (so far). This week we’ve been celebrating our remote working dads. Go the dads! http://blog.gettimely.com/more-dads-at-day-care/

betty dorsett

would i have to file taxes working with you guys? I ask because I am on disability but this would be something that I would enjoy doing and be able to do.
Thank You

Angela Merrow

Betty, I’m a bit late to the party! I just ran into your post. In the US if you are on Disability as SSDI or SSI you can work. There are different allowances depending on which version of disability you receive. This is ‘outlined’ in a SSA publication No. 05-10060 titled “Incentives To Help You Return To Work”. For more detailed information go to: http://www.chooseworkttw.net/. I have been on SSI for over 6 years and while I have worked, I only returned to work full time+ this year. It’s truly been an easy experience with my local Social Security office. Your local representative will be able to give you more detailed information in person. Good luck in your future endeavors.

Any reason you prefer Squiggle over Google Hangouts? I’m a freelance filmmaker and I work with a geographically spread out Non-Profit company and we find that Google Hangouts works quite well for weekly staff meetings… just wanna hear more about other services!

Hangouts is good for “ok, at 10am let’s all get on this hangout and be fully engaged. Here is the link to the hangout”. Squiggle is more like unified communications with presence, where you can pull together the people you want to meet with at any moment. It seems more like how we meet in person in an office, with ad-hoc gatherings.

Joel, I like your style. You are a visionary. I am also building a distributed team throughout the Caribbean starting in Havana, Cuba. Looks like an old man like me beat you to Cuba. Don’t worry, I’ll send you a postcard.

Sally Adams

I would love to join this team ;) This sounds absolutely amazing!!!! Joel, please email me at sapphirequeen72@hotmail.com!!!
I need to know more ;) Have a great day!

I love remote! I live in Colombia and to really work in projects I love and are cool I need to work with clients in other countries.

You guys sound so cool (and I really love the product) that I’m considering applying to be your new backend developer :)

Expecto Adventures

I love not only the service Buffer provides, but how well you treat your staff! I think happy employees = better output. I’m in a four year work contract atm, but as soon as I’m looking for new employment – Buffer is where I’ll apply first! Love you guys!

It is so awesome that you embrace this type of working model. I have been fighting for a long time at my job to be given the opportunity to work remotely, but closed mindedness is deeply rooted in the industry I work in.

I have been coming across more people like you, people who have taken their ideas and made them real. People who have the opportunity to work and spend time with those they love. I know one day I’ll get there. If you are ever looking for a free-lance writer I would love to be apart of your amazing team. You can view some of my work at my blog http://www.amazingislife.com

I’m currently a social media manager for a car dealership, where I curate, create and distribute all by myself in addition to handling the day to day in house inventory uploads. I am SO interested in the opportunity to join Buffer! I honestly just found and started using buffer this week, but from everything I have seen, its an impressive suite of tools that would make it easy for anyone to excel! The idea of moving into the field which has already proven to be my dream job, and working along side (well, along “screen”, I guess) other major players in this industry is nothing short of a fairy tale. Of course – qualifications are what they are for a reason, and I’m excited to spend some time really getting to know buffer from the consumer point of view for a few months before humbly asking for the opportunity of a lifetime in joining your team. But Id also love to know, is there anything else I can add to my repertoire to make me more appealing to you in these next few months? Because, really guys – I can’t imagine a better job.

Do you have to be a coder to be useful there? I’m a self employed photographer and tech guy. I fell in love with Buffer to help me market my photography. Being able to merge work with passion would be nice… :-)

Dylan Enderlein

This is super awesome and sounds like a dream workplace due to the environment they create

Walthamstow Facts

I’m very excited about this. You basically have everything covered over a 24-hour period. I’m from the UK and would like to apply as a content creator. Are you looking for UK-based people for this role? Could I also work part-time?

Tara Magalski

So is the bootcamp a paid position or pro bono until you are hired full time?

anna s

Were do i apply lol

Barbara Montgomery

Hi Joel,
I have worked with start up Companies most of my career. I am a seasoned Professional so If you looking for talent, tenacity, hard work but someone that comes from Dos, mainframe, .net to this era. When I first became a BA, we wrote everything down in word w/screen prints. Now i have been introduced to scrum and agile which was a huge learning curve but I can definitely see it’s advantages. My assets are working w/people, training, csr, SALES. I can sell just about anything if I believe it is to the benefit of the client. Alot of start up Companies look for young people. I am asking if you are training young people why not someone that is seasoned and has the experience? I look good and am definitely a people person. Thank you for listening. Barbara Montgomery 949-322-2586, bjm3040@att.net.

Stephanie Prastio

Hello!
I am very interested in your Gratitude Champion position and would love an opportunity to discuss it further if possible. What is the best way to contact or apply for the position? Thank you! :)

Dezeri Ann Rollins Royce

I would love to hear more about becoming part of your diverse and motivated team.

Ravikant Chhikara

Hi, I am from India. Just wished to check if I may have pleasure to work with you guys.
Thanks,
Ravi

Jools Stone

I have to say, I do like the sound of the Buffer way. Everything I’ve read so far makes it sound like an awesome co to work for! Expect your inbox to be pinged shortly guys! :)

lizcarmona

I would love to know more about how to apply. I am bilingual in Spanish and believe it can be a great asset for your company.

Love the positive attitude here, I worked with a hugely distributed network of remote employees for a while and the key is to get on the phone, or video and actually talk to them once in a while. Then, everything else can be done by chat/text/email as usual. Just remember to send a lolcat or something upbeat once in a while so they know you care and value them as a person too. It’s really a lot of fun. 3-4 get together per year is smart too, friendship in business can create a powerful team!

Just read this and it sounds like the future and an awesome way to work!!! Not only do you trust employees to work from home you allow flexibility to work from wherever they are!

Brady Dyer

Part of me wishes my own startup wasn’t going so well as I’d love to be part of the Buffer team!! Such an inspiring business!

Sortacasual

Being an aspiring entrepreneur, I have infinite respect for what you are doing. Providing a free version of your service, similar to Weebly with their website builder, makes all the difference in generating loyal followers and easy/safe trial periods for curious users. What you’ve built is amazing for anyone participating in the modern generation, whether it be for their personal social media accounts, or for small businesses. You’ve saved people a remarkable amount of time, which is the most valuable thing a human has. Thank you for your hard work and dedication, and perhaps when I’m older I can consider working with this amazing team and group of people you have.

Sincerely,

Chris Hope.

pj882

this is all brand new territory I haven’t even dreamed of! first was the transparent salary that got my attention (via a Business Insider post)…so awesome! then I got to read about the remote work environment. this is all so good and I wish I could be a part of it!

Jun Kim

It is very interesting how your work system is; in different locations and time zones, communicating by online tools, and unique cultures. I’m quite surprised (and glad) that it has been working for you. Though I have a concern with the communication in the future when sharing in whole group. I have experienced that when the members of a company grows, the documents(emails, chats, reports, etc) created by the workers increase faster, and soon one would realize working time is spent mostly on following through those documents than the actual task at hand such as developing new feature, fixing bugs, or drawing a design. I’m sure part of work is to follow through those documents, give feedback, and so forth, but when those documents become too large, it would be like biting more than can chew.

Steffan Pedersen

So awesome. Thanks for sharing!

Cameron Middleton

Love the innovation and mindfulness! Buffer truly seems to embody the ‘work smarter not harder’ philosophy. As a new user I am consistently impressed with the metrics, analytics and application of the platform on all levels as I continue to explore the full potential of Buffer. Congratulations and keep up the good work!

Josh

I’m curious as to whether the ‘work anywhere’ philosophy is compromised when hiring happiness heroes? Do you have to balance that against having the right number of people in the right timezone to deal with enquiries as they come in?

A few of your team members follow me on Twitter and I’ve had the joy of getting cards from them in the past in the mail with nifty little stickers. I’m a huge fan of your product and preach it to every client I work with. I hope one day to join the ranks and work on what I like so much! Keep being awesome!

Jennifer Otey

This seems like a dream job to me!! I’m a virtual assistant and work for small businesses from home around my daughter’s school schedule. I am so impressed with how open you are with all the behind the scene details. I am falling in love with buffer the more I get into it!

Isabella Lau

Buffer sounds like an amazing company! If you ever need a high school intern, feel free to contact me at codeisabella@gmail.com.

Through my time as a software captain in FIRST Tech Challenge, I have experience with RobotC, Java, Android Studio, Github, and exposure to Gradle. I’m super interested in being able to see what it’s like in the engineering community, especially with a company whose work flow is as unique as Buffer.

Hi there, this is awesome. I’m a CEO of a small but intentionally dispersed and remote team. We have shared office spaces in a few cities as we need, but no one is expected to report to a physical office. We work from all over the world. We are finding that this setup actually makes staff more productive, more responsible as team players and happier. A couple of issues however are with local tax filings (not as much now with Gusto, though) and whether we need to foreign qualify in the various states we have employees. If you have one remote employee in a state, any thoughts on the requirement to file foreign qualification in that state? Your mission of transparency is inspiring.

Luiser

Hey guys, I’ve been working remotely for a while now in an awesome company. We try to solve pains in the software development industry create tools for it. We use scrum and we all always felt kind of dumb playing planning poker on hangouts (holding a card against your head on a starbucks at 8AM), so we looked into improving sprint estimations & retrospectives:
PlanningWith.Cards is a Hangouts & Hipchat add-on to play planning poker. And it’s Free! The paid version imports your estimations to any tool. You should check it out! PlanningWith.Cards – https://marketplace.atlassian.com/plugins/planningwithcards/cloud/overview

Ze’ev Belkin

Hi. I am an Android and a full-stack developer, also I am a browser extension developer and a language tool developer.
I am very interested to work for the company.

Love the company culture and vision!! What a wonderful approach to keeping your team happy Joel. I have been working remotely for over 10 years (currently in Barcelona) and my US clients love always having someone available when they can’t be. I will be on the lookout for new opportunities at Buffer. I have not yet used Buffer and have not picked up “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie, but it’s in the works. I’m a Creative Project Manager and I can already picture myself on your timezone app next to Mike in Barcelona.

Clare Fairhall

Hi Joel, I landed on this post by accident while researching Buffer, and I am so impressed and fascinated by your global office and your company culture. I currently work in a small corporate with a “start-up feel”, and I balance my work with study. So the ability to work anywhere and work flexible hours is something I really value – big kudos to you on making this such an integral part of your company! I am looking towards a career as a freelancer working with stakeholders all over the world, so I found reading about how your team works and the tools you use to stay in touch insightful. I too share your view that this way of working will be very normal in years to come. Thank you for sharing, and well done on your global office – it looks like fantastic fun!

OK Cash Home Buyers

Good insights, its worth sharing

JP Cañete

hi team, do hire outside US. I dont have a problem as far as experience, 10 years working experience. I work in call center, from customer service, tech and sales. As far as integrity, I work in a financial account right now(BANK). Both phone and now handling a team. I also worked as a freelancer for data encoding. I am looking for a home base job for extra cash. I already have a 7 month old daughter so, need more income for savings.

Kalyan Banga

I heard about your remote work culture, viewed your website, it’s great. I am from India and would love to collaborate if there is a suitable oppurtunity. Thanks, Kalyan Banga, Fusion Analytics World

@joelgascoigne:disqus thanks so much for sharing your experience!
We started our small ad agency 3 years ago and were distributed by need. We’ve accomplished a lot but I still miss working physically close to a team so we’ll hopefully move to a model where we have a small office and some super talented people scattered around.
Anyway! Just wanted to say THANK YOU! for sharing your experience and part of your process is super generous, inspiring and useful for us!
Big hug and thanks again!
Alf

Steph

This opportunity sounds incredible! I am a Marine Veteran and single mom of 5. I love people, I love helping people and bringing smiles on their faces. How am I able to apply? Thank you!